Hey there are some new iPads and new Macbooks. And a new operating system for Macs.

iPads

The new full sized iPads–now called the air–were exactly what we expected them to be (mostly the same, but smaller and lighter and faster).

The new iPad Air is more of an iPad Mini Jumbo than an iPad 5. It has the same thickness (7.5mm) and thin-bezel design as the Mini. It lost weight too. It’s now 1 pound instead of 1.44. That might not sound like much, but it’s enough to make the difference between comfortable one-handed use, and having to prop it on your lap. This is a big deal. The ability to comfortably use the Mini with one hand was the main advantage the Mini had over the full-sized iPad, which was why we deemed it the best tablet. If that’s no longer the case, and initial hands-on impressions indicate as much, then there’s a possibility that our pick for best tablet will once again have a full sized screen. We’ll have to go hands on before making that call though.

The Air also got the faster A7 processor and M7 motion processor from the 5S, better cameras, and 802.11n MIMO Wi-Fi (here’s all the specs if you’re interested), but you probably won’t notice that in day to day use, which is a good thing. It starts at $500 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version.

The new iPad Mini has all of those new specs too with the same body design and screen size as the old iPad Mini. What’s new is the Retina display with the same resolution as the Air (2048×1536 pixels), which is cool, but also table stakes at this point. Both the Kindle Fire HDX and Nexus 7 have had similarly high-resolution, albeit smaller, screens for some time now. This iPad’s new resolution is not so much a huge deal as much as it is something we expect all small tablets to have in 2013.

While the Mini’s size remains mostly unchanged (it’s a touch thicker) it’s actually 7.3% heavier than its predecessor at 0.73 pounds. That, combined with the Air’s diet makes the Mini’s measurements seem a lot bigger, relatively speaking. It’s now only 27% lighter, 1.3 inches narrower and 1.53 inches shorter than the full-sized iPad Air compared to being about 50% lighter, 2 inches narrower, and 1.63 inches shorter than the iPad 4. It makes you wonder if it’s even worth trading that extra screen real estate for only slightly more portability—especially since it starts at $400 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, which is only $100 cheaper than the Air at any given spec level. You can get the old Mini starting at $300, but it’s hard to justify paying that much for what is essentially a 2.5 year-old tablet (iPad 2) in a smaller body unless you really need the money. Especially when last year’s Mini is not that quick while running iOS 7.

Neither of these new iPads have touchID, Apple’s fingerprint unlocking mechanism. That’s kind of annoying as many people with new iPhones will be trying to unlock their iPads with their digits. No big deal, though.

The biggest surprise from today was the fact that Apple will continue selling new iPad 2s. That’s a 2.5 year old tablet that still meets minimum spec requirements today—although we wouldn’t recommend buying one. That said, it’s still perfectly usable. I dare you to try and live with a similarly old Android tablet.

In the end, unlike media streamers or phones where competition is even, in tablets, iPads are still the best by far, with their stronger library of apps and lack of any real weaknesses.

MacBook Pros

The MacBook Pro lineup has been updated to have similar designs, but with new Haswell CPUs. They are available starting today and are a few hundred bucks cheaper than last year’s Pros. Although last year’s non-Retina Pro is still available in the store, the new Pros are all Haswell, all Retina, and have the faster PCIe SSD setup that debuted on the MacBook Air giving them roughly 2x the drive speed of the previous generation.

Still, the 13-inch Pro is now lighter and faster, but probably not powerful enough to justify its premium over the Air. Sure it has a retina display, But keep in mind the standard resolution of the retina, not maxed out and scaled, is less than that of the Air. And maxing out the 13 pro’s graphical resolution veers towards eyestrain inducing. The Macbook Air’s resolution seems to be at a really balanced point between pixel density and usability.

The rest of the equation is iffy, too. The pro 13 is 0.11 pounds lighter and 0.04 inches thinner than last year’s, but still half a pound heavier and up to 0.6 inches thicker than the Air. Its battery life is 3 hours shorter than the Air, and it still doesn’t have discrete graphics, but unlike last year, it has better integrated graphics. Haswell has different levels of integrated graphics and the Iris 5100 graphics in the 13-inch Pro are about 20 percent faster than the HD 5000 graphics in this year’s Air. You’re still trading the Air’s lightness and battery life for a Retina display, but at least there’s more of a performance boost—although the CPUs in the 13-inch are dual-core only, which keeps them out of power-user territory. The SSDs themselves are PCIe-based like in this year’s Air, so they’re roughly twice as fast as before. The 13-inch starts at $1300 with 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD, or about $400 cheaper than last year’s entry-level 13-inch Pro, and only a few hundred bucks over a similarly configured Air. It’s probably not worth getting over the Air unless you must have a Retina display, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD or the extra ports. In otherwords, if you’re a pro user, you can consider it. But you should really be considering the 15-inch Pro.

The 15-inch Pro, like last year, will almost certainly be our pick for a power-user’s notebook. It starts at $2000 for a 2GHz quad-core i7 processor with Intel Iris Pro graphics, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, and goes up to 2.8GHz processor, Nvidia GT 750M discrete graphics, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. The integrated graphics in the 15-inch Pro should be about twice as fast as last year’s, but not still slightly slower than the discrete graphics option from last year, while this year’s Nvidia GT 750M discrete graphics should be about 10-20 percent faster than last year’s 650M.

Both Pros come with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports, so they can actually run 4K monitors (not that anyone has them). They also have Wireless-ac, for better WiFi performance if you have an ac router. Real talk, there’s no need to upgrade if you got a Retina Pro last year, and most people are probably fine with the Air, but if you need more power than the Air and can bear to haul it, you should probably get the 15-inch. We’ll wait and see how the reviews turn out, though.

Mac Pro

It will be available in December. It’s really fast. It looks like a trash can. It’s for professionals. It starts at $3000. If you’re wondering if you need one, you probably don’t and should consider an iMac or a Macbook Pro.

Free OS X

The OS X gold master has been out for a while (Ars Technica has even published a 24 page review of it) so there’s nothing new in terms of features. What is new is that it’s free. OS X is going the way of iOS and is available today at no charge to all OS X users, including those still running outdated versions. Apple wants people to upgrade, and now there’s really no excuse not to do so. This is in stark contrast to Microsoft, which is charging $100 for new copies if Windows 8.1 barely a year after the launch of Windows 8 (though it’s free for existing Windows 8 users).

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